It’s early October and one shouldn’t make predictions this early, but for me the two best rosters with the two best cores are the OKC Thunder and the Denver Nuggets. Maybe Houston third if Kevin Durant’s body can get him to mid-April healthy. Minnesota should still be a force, but they as a team have to find offensive consistency. IN BOLD TYPE. OFFENSE HAS TO BE MUCH BETTER.
San Antonio and Dallas interest me, but based on their season endings last April … that’s a wait and see for me.
Golden State is another wait and see for me. Too many minutes on the bodies of Steph, Jimmy Butler, and Draymond, plus the unknown of how many times Draymond’s antics will hurt his own team.
If there were an official NBA.com metric for most stupid, bone-headed plays which cause a team to stall…I would guesstimate Draymond has been the runaway leader in that metric ever since he slugged then teammate Jordan Poole several seasons ago. I’m done trying to figure out Draymond’s head. Steph and Jimmy Butler can have that assignment.
The Denver Nuggets are loaded and three of their core members, Nikola, Aaron, and Christian ar coming off career years as far as offensive production. Quite frankly, on my sheet I had both on my lis as playing better than Jamal Murray during the playoffs. They both exceeded expectations, while Jamal struggled at times.
That struggling needs to end this next April if the Nuggets are to deny the Thunder a back to back and in the stead win their second O’Brien Trophy themselves in the past four seasons.
Peyton Watson needs to be more consistent as does Julian Strawther. Don’t forget it was Julian who in reality sparked the Nuggets past the Thunder in Game 6 in Denver.
I’m not at all concerned about Bruce Brown, Cam Johnson, and Jonas V playing well. If you can’t fit your game to Nikola then it probably isn’t happening for you in the NBA. Ask Russell Westbrook’s agent if you doubt MJ on that one.. I love Russell and that’s the only reason I’m not adding another sentence or two to the previous thought.
Bottomline…Jamal needs to be more consistent this season and stay healthy if possible.
Have a beautiful Friday.
More love and less hate. We have to be better than this. We have to.
MJ